The computer is a little yikes - because parts from the board set are not possible to find unless you have deep pockets. They did have a replacement that got pulled from the market. I will say this about the two I had - the CPU went out on one, but I was able to get it repaired for next to nothing, as it was a simple issue with dead caps. I found the game to be extremely reliable and parts were not hard to get. If you lose a board, you are out some fun but the failure rate does not seem to be overwhelming.

Unless Nucore makes it back on the market, i'd hesitate to buy one for long term use.

Rob Anthony can still repair most board issues. There are still CPUs floating around for sale also. I got a spare one a couple of months ago as a back up. Wouldn't put off getting one, if you are only concerned with maintenance. Pretty tough game with a playfield that takes a beating.

I've had one on location for two years and the only problem I had was the monitor going out. That's a battle I fight daily so I was able to get it up and running in a day (monitor recap, replace bad resistor and transistor on monitor chasis). I wouldn't hesitate to get an RFM. SWEP1 is just... not good.

It seems like it's no worse than any other game with critical hard-to-find parts. Parts are around, and many owners tend to keep spares on-hand, so if you really need to replace something, I'm sure you can find someone who would sell it for the right price.

My family and I really like our RFM. I had 2 flaky switches that I simply switched out as any other Williams rollover switch. I've not had any other issues.

Yeah the switch issue was the worst they used a crap version of cherry switches but easy to replace

not that I endorse this sort of thing, but I saw a RFM that had a flat screen monitor and a pc that off the shelf had the hardware to run pin box and those were under $100.

you can buy used original pcs, and hopefully an updated nucore in the future

but I have had no PC trouble and the picture tube is good for many years now

Don't be so sure. Pin2k parts are unique. We aren't talking about a weird post or plastic. The playfield is pretty standard parts. But it ends there. Unique cpu and driver boards and even glass are much much harder to find than just standard parts. But that said, they are out there. And you can do things to bulletproof a working existing game.

Loving term you should be able to take care of it. But don't bank on being able to find parts as needed. I recently had a nos motherboard and suffice it to say it cost as much as I've paid for some pins!

Seriously it's like anything else. Take care of it and it will hold up. But think of it a bit more like a computer than a pin. Ensure its cooled and fed clean power.

Pinbox is out on the interweb. So if the cpu craps out. You can just throw any older cpu that has the right specs with a serial port in it.

That said. If you replace the fans. Batteries in the cpu. And change the power supply, pin2000's are really reliable.
And have a great service menu system.

I have owned both and the only issues were the odd switch. Or broken wire. The usual stuff.

I would also suggest the ultimarc video booster mod.
I did it to my RFM and SWE1. It made a huge difference.

I think that more then one MB works (they may not fit the casing but have the same chip set) as for nucore why should the owners of the IP's have to there cut of the cost for a replacement part? It's like double dipping.

As for nucore they seemed to have ripped off open source code and tried to pass it off as there own so that code should be out there and I don't see the issue with pin box. And a court case can have the very small change of ending up being very bad for the VM market the base code that Nucore is based on is based on is used in a lot of systems.

Just think if MS wanted a cut of sale of each game on steam / gog and others that uses dos box? (and that is not fully the same thing there)